(or, Alcibiades – Lad of Athens)
“Secrets and their suburbs are the precincts we must guard.
One pacifies the residents, one manicures the yard.
And never mind its contents are forgotten;
a secret gathers substance shard by shard.
Frequently you know there’s one because there is a gap.
It’s covered up with hollow planks, a grate, a windy flap.
The scent is sometimes sweet and sometimes rotten.
You’d plumb its depths but fear that it’s a trap.
Fill it up or leave it there? It seems that one must choose.
You see, the secret is the gap through which it spreads its clues.
‘I mystify myself!’ exclaimed Akhnaton
and suffered unto history his ruse.”
Alcibiades put out his candle, then he slept.
The stars maintained their mysteries as on the breezes swept,
preparing Earth for papacy and cotton.
He’d figured out how secrets had been kept.